


The Nightingale's Song

by WhiteRoseRed



Series: RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26023435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteRoseRed/pseuds/WhiteRoseRed
Summary: A cruel boy learns to look beyond himself.Third in a series of fairytales written on Twitter, then collected on AO3.
Series: RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888828
Kudos: 2





	The Nightingale's Song

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A boy who lived by the millpond played beautiful music, but he was bullying and cruel. He would even throw rocks at the nightingales that bobbed and sang on a nearby branch. On Midsummer Day, the miller's daughter went to him just as he was about to stone another nightingale. As she stepped along the rocky shore, her skirt gathered in one hand, the boy looked at her with hungry eyes. She had hair like silk and skin like cream and her body was supple and lovely. She glanced at the lute at his feet.

"Learn the nightingale's song, play it for me, and I will give you a kiss," she told him. He stared into her twinkling emerald eyes, dropped the rock, and picked up his lute with a nod. The miller's daughter swept up the path and headed to market to buy a sack of apples.

Every day, the boy went to the shore and stood under the branch where the nightingale sang, to hear and learn his song. As he listened, he also watched the lives that the pond contained. He saw the bejeweled dragonflies molt, the waterlilies spin, the frogs eat the dragonflies.

The nightingale and other birds built their nests, and downy fledglings hatched before his eyes. He did not let them come to any harm. As the days passed and he listened and learned, the boy's skin was warmed by the sun and cooled by the mists. The wind tossed seeds and petals to crown his hair. His cruelty melted into wonder as he observed the world. 

He practiced the song of the nightingale through every season, and in all weather. The miller's daughter peered out her window and admired the boy as he plucked thoughtfully at his lute. On the next Midsummer Day, she went to him on the rocky shore.

"I have learned the song of the nightingale," the boy said, and began to play for her. His music was not just of the birds; it held the peeping of the frogs, the fragrance of the water lilies, the glitter of the dragonfly's wing. All the radiant beauty of sun and snow.

The miller's daughter gave a freckled smile behind her strawberry hair. She placed her pale fingers over his on the neck of the lute, gave him a kiss with the sweetness of apples. At their wedding, every tree in the churchyard was full of nightingales, singing their song.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to imagine that they are the stories that the original character Cerryn from my Star Wars fic, [Sweetness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748004/chapters/57035197), would have in the books in her room.


End file.
